Breakout Kings Episode 2.09 Freakshow

A handsome reporter walks along the razor wire fence of Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, MA. He addresses the camera, describing the heinous crime that earned escape artist Max Morris four consecutive life sentences. Twenty years earlier, Max performed his big finale, then inexplicably set fire to the circus tent, killing four spectators and leaving a dozen more burned or trampled in the ensuing stampede. Since then he's escaped from two other prisons, earning himself a spot in supermax.

A control and restraint team geared up with riot masks, batons, pepper spray, and Tasers stands ready outside Max's cell. The lead guard mutters into his radio, and the door buzzes open to reveal the wiry prisoner kneeling on the floor, his back to the door, ankles crossed, hands on his head. After checking for booby-traps, the guards enter and begin the process of shackling Max.

Two guards cuff his hands to his waist and run a chain to his ankles. Another guard frisks him. All the while, Max is calm and compliant. The guard uses a heavy flashlight to lift Max's chin. Max opens his mouth and moves his tongue side to side so the guard can search it with the flashlight. He then pulls a mesh "spit hood" over Max's head, his face eerily visible through the gauzy material. Shuffling him down the hallway, they lead him to a visiting room, where the reporter and camera crew are waiting patiently to begin Max's first interview.

Max sits across a steel table from the reporter, while the nervous cameraman wires him for sound. The vigilant guards back up to the perimeter as the cameraman hurries to his camera and nods to the reporter. As the interview begins, Max silently and efficiently dismantles the wireless mike transmitter that the cameraman clipped to him moments earlier. Under the table, Max pulls the battery out of the transmitter and sparks it against a foil packet he pulls from his sleeve. There's a startling bang and a thick blanket of smoke billows out from beneath the table. Alarms blare. The guards close in, but the room rapidly fills with dense smoke that obscures their view and starts them coughing. By the time they reach Max's seat, it's empty. A guard stumbles blindly for an exit. He bangs into a door and stumbles out of the room where the parting smoke reveals a trail of devastation. Two guards lie beaten with their own batons. Further on, a third guard is unconscious, possibly dead.

The guard leaps over the body and races toward an exterior door that's slowly closing. He bursts through it, out into the blinding daylight, but there's no sign of Max Morris anywhere. The guy has simply vanished.

Ray and Lloyd have a quiet conversation in a bustling administrative hallway of Maybelle. Lloyd, wearing a prison jumper and handcuffs, looks around furtively, making sure there are no prisoners out here who might see him with the Marshal. Ray tells him about the case and Max's upbringing in the circus, but Lloyd is steadfast in his decision: he's not going back to the team, especially after what Damien did to the young girl in front of him. Ray - nearly pleading - asks him to reconsider, but Lloyd won't crack. Finally, Ray tells him he didn't want it to come to this. He pulls out his cell phone, puts it on speaker, and calls Lloyd's mom. Lloyd stares daggers at Ray while his mother goes on and on about how disappointed she is in him. Lloyd caves.

In the bullpen, Julianne stands with Erica and Shea. A monitor shows articles on the circus fire, along with old poster art of Max Morris' act. Julianne tells the team that he never received letters or had visitors. He barely had a paper trail at all. Erica asks if he had any mentors or friends at the circus, but Julianne tells them that, according to his files, he was a loner and "self-taught escape artist." Julianne asks Shea and Erica what happened with Lloyd, and they tell her he refused to get in the transpo van. Julianne tries to hide her disappointment. The elevator rumbles up the shaft, and she turns to it, hopeful, but it's just two plainclothes detectives looking for Ray. Julianne tells them that he's not there, so they fill her in on their search for Pete Gillies, a suspect in the Tommy Fitzgerald beating. Upon hearing his name, Erica freezes up. Shea, sensing something is up, slowly turns to stare at her. She swallows hard and avoids his gaze. The detectives ask if any of them knew Pete well. Shea tells him that none of them were close to Pete.

Ray and Lloyd arrive and the detectives introduce themselves and bring him up to speed. Ray leads the detectives into his office while Lloyd gives Julianne a polite, but perfunctory greeting and grabs Max's files from her. Shea turns towards Erica, but there's no sign of her anywhere.

Erica is a woman on fire, frantically searching Pete's emptied office, studying every stray bit of paper for clues. Furious, she hurls a mug at the wall, nearly hitting Shea, who's standing in the doorway. Knowing that Erica gave Pete the information, Shea tells her to take care of her mess because if she gets caught, that means they're all going back to maximum security, and he's not having that. Erica stares Shea down, but says nothing.

A semi rumbles into a busy truck stop. As it slows down to park, Max Morris jumps from his hiding spot behind the cab and scampers away through the maze of trucks.

Max slinks down the aisles of the gift shop in his filthy prison blues. He tries on some cheap sunglasses, then pulls a "Massachusetts" sweatshirt off a rack and checks the size. He glances over at the register. The cashier is nowhere in sight, so Max pulls it on over his prison-issue shirt. When he turns around, he sees the cashier waiting for him, pointing a gun to his head. The cashier recognizes Max and tells him to get down. Max slowly lies down on his belly, as the cashier pulls out plastic handcuffs and restrains him. As the cashier heads toward the phone, Max rolls onto his back, brings his knees to his chest, pulls his cuffed hands underneath him, and kicks his legs into the air, flipping himself onto his feet. The cashier is almost to the phone when Max comes up from behind, throws his cuffed hands over the cashier's head, and snaps his neck.

Lloyd is bent over the case file when Ray emerges from his office, escorting the detectives to the elevator. Lloyd's phone begins to vibrate on his desk. Lloyd stares at it, but makes no move to answer. Ray, knowing it's Damien, tells Lloyd to answer it, but he refuses. Ray wants to kill him, but settles for answering the phone himself. He gets no reply.

On the other line, Damien stands at a waterfront, the phone to his ear. Angry that Lloyd won't talk to him, he hangs up. Ray turns towards Julianne and tells her to trace the call, then looks back to Lloyd, asking what the hell is wrong with him. Lloyd explains that he's Damien's audience, so if Damien can't get him on the phone, the lack of attention will drive him nuts. It will unsettle him, and an unsettled Damien is more likely to slip up. Ray shakes his head, not liking this plan one bit, and tells Lloyd that if he's going to ignore Damien, he had better put all of his focus on capturing Max. Lloyd says he's way ahead of him and tells the team that if they want to find out where Max is heading, they have to look into where he came from. Julianne tells the team that some of the members of Max's old traveling circus now work at a carnival in New Jersey.

An old cowboy named Dwight carries a coffee over to his GMC Extended Cab just in time to see a figure climbing into the horse trailer tethered to it. Dwight walks back and looks inside the empty trailer to find Max Morris, in his newly procured "Massachusetts" cap and sweatshirt. Max tells him that he saw the Texas plates and that he needed a ride down south. Dwight tells him to hop up front, walks back and gets behind the wheel of the pickup. Max comes around to the passenger door, tentative. He takes a quick look around, checks the gun hidden in his waistband, then climbs into the truck.

The team arrives at a low-rent carnival. They wander amongst the scattered attendees enjoying rides, game booths, and roaming performers, searching for somebody who may have known Max, but unfortunately have no luck. They reconvene and Erica, noticing Shea looking distinctly uncomfortable in this new setting, realizes that he's afraid of clowns. Before they can really dig into him about it, Lloyd's phone rings. It's Damien again. Lloyd, as promised, doesn't pick up the phone. Across the park, Erica spots a shady-looking clown who backs away from the carnival and runs. The team chases after him, and Shea tackles him to the ground, screaming and pummeling the poor guy. Ray, Erica, and Lloyd converge on the scene and pull Shea off of the battered clown. Shea howls in primal victory.

Max huddles against the passenger door while Dwight drives. The old cowboy tells Max that he looks like the type of man that's headed for trouble, but reassures him that he means nothing bad by it. He tells Max that he sees good in him. Dwight then lays a warm hand on Max's shoulder. At first, Max flinches, but then he looks over at the older man, and is moved for maybe for the first time in his life... Until Dwight lets his hand fall to Max's upper thigh, where it rests a moment, lightly rubbing him.

Mike Dodd, aka Red Wig the clown, sits cuffed to the table, wig pulled off, costume muddy and torn. With his free hand, he pulls a chain of handkerchiefs from his breast pocket and wipes off his clown makeup. Lloyd follows Ray into the interrogation room, where Ray throws a copy of Mike's warrant from Ohio for not paying child support on the table. Ray tells Mike to tell them everything he knows about Max, since they used to be a part of the same circus, and he won't send him back to Columbus. Mike tells the team that Tiny Tony and Eleanore Tubbs - two sideshow performers - were Max's real parents.

Eleanore, who was over 900 pounds, died when Max was seven and Tony never admitted that he was Max's father. So, basically, Max raised himself and the circus crew kept him around to clean the elephant cage and perform. Ray and Lloyd look at each other with disgust. Lloyd goes off on Mike, telling him that he and the rest of the circus act bullied Max, lowering his self-worth, and denied him positive reinforcement. They took a malfunctioning mind and broke it completely. Lloyd is about to say more, but he freezes. Then he turns on a dime and walks out into the bullpen, leaving Ray confused.

Ray comes out to find Lloyd rifling through the case file. Lloyd explains to him that in Max's deposition he kept repeating the phrase "I just wanted to kill him." "Him," Lloyd points out, was one specific person - his father, Tiny Tony. Julianne jumps on her computer and tracks down Tony's most recent address.

Shea, Erica, and Lloyd head to the SUV. Before Erica can get in the car, her phone vibrates - it's a text from Pete. She glances down the alley just in time to see a figure duck around the corner. She pretends to call her daughter as she strolls to the end of the alley. As she approaches, Pete comes into view, huddling against the wall, furtive. Erica, pissed, immediately confronts him, asking why he screwed her over. He explains that it wasn't his intention to hurt Tommy, he just went over there to collect the $50,000 Tommy owed him. He assures her that his feelings for her are real, and asks her to run away with him. Erica, dumbfounded, says "no" and tells Pete to disappear. If they can't find him, they can't link her to the crime. Pete hands her the number of his pre-paid cell, telling her to think about it. Erica spins around, phone still to her ear, to see Ray waving to her to get into the SUV. She chances a look back at Pete, but he's gone.

The SUV rolls up to a sparsely populated trailer park. Shea, Erica and Lloyd head toward the trailer and Erica knocks on the door. A tall, shapely woman, Chelsea, stands in front of the team. She tells them that she doesn't know where Tony is, but Ray comes from around back, holding an XXL t-shirt and informs her that they know Tony's social security checks are still being cashed. She freezes and admits that Tony drank himself to death over a year ago. Ray asks if anybody else knows Tony is dead, but Chelsea says that his wife died years earlier and his only son, Kurt, stopped talking to him ages ago. The team is surprised to hear about Kurt and realizes that Max probably doesn't know about his father's death.

Dwight's rig and trailer roll off the highway and park at an abandoned roadside motel. Max steps out and looks around. Dwight follows him, hesitant. Max tells Dwight that he taught himself how to be an escape artist by intentionally putting himself into bad situations just to see if he could get out. Max pulls a length or rope out of Dwight's truck bed. He hands it to Dwight, then turns around and puts his hands together behind his back. Dwight slowly lights up as he ties Max's wrists together. Then Max reaches his tied hands into the back of his waistband and draws a gun. Dwight stumbles backward, completely stunned, and raises his hands. Max tells him that if Dwight can get to the gun before him, he lives. Dwight doesn't want to play, but Max doesn't give him the option. Max gets his hands free in nothing flat. Dwight dives for the gun, but Max gets it first. He puts it to Dwight's forehead, thanks him for the ride, then pulls the trigger.

Erica stands at a distance, half-hidden by a tree, watching over the trailer. She looks at the phone number Pete scrawled for her, and fiddles with her phone, toying with the idea. Shea comes up behind her, reminding her that Julianne can trace their phone calls. Erica pockets the phone then heads back towards the trailer.

The inside of the trailer is everything the outside promises. Lloyd combs through Tiny Tony's photo album. It's filled with loving photos of Tiny Tony with his wife and son, Kurt, but not a single picture of Max. Lloyd's cell phone begins to ring. Ray looks at the display. Ray says he can't go along with his little game anymore, and tells him to answer it. Lloyd acquiesces and takes the phone from Ray, but instead of answering, he turns and darts out the door.

Ray bounds out right behind Lloyd, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him up against the trailer. He pulls the ringing phone from Lloyd's grip and pins him in place. He answers, putting it on speaker. Damien, on the other line, finally breaks his silence and asks Ray why they took his team off of the case. Ray tells Damien that they should get together - just them - but Damien loses interest and says he has no business with Ray, only Lloyd. He hangs up the phone and Ray stands there, fighting the urge to throw it. Lloyd looks at Ray and tells him that his plan is working. Ray's cell phone rings and Julianne tells the team she got a hit about both Dwight and the gas station attendant's murder. Dwight was found dead only twenty minutes away from where Max's half-brother Kurt lives. She also tells Ray that Tommy Fitzgerald was taken off life support. Erica goes pale and the team heads back to the SUV. Erica remains behind for a beat, steels herself, then joins the others.

The SUV comes to a stop on a suburban street. Ray leans out the window to see a half-dozen police cars blocking off the street, lights flashing, and cops milling about. Ray and Lloyd bang on the front door to one of the homes and Kurt opens up. He's confused as to why Max - who he claims isn't actually his half-brother - would want to come after him. Lloyd explains that Max craved the attention from their biological father that only Kurt received. Ray tells Kurt that they should take him to a safe place until this blows over, but Kurt isn't having it. Kurt plops himself down in front of the TV.

Lloyd and Ray go outside to find the cops moving a barricade for a flatbed truck carrying port-a-potties. Furious, Ray bangs on the truck driver's door and learns that the chief ordered them since Kurt won't let the cops use his bathroom. Ray stalks off to track down the chief. Erica leans into Shea and tells him to cover for her. She runs down the street from Kurt's house and up to a convenience store to use the payphone outside. Erica dials Pete's number. He answers and she tells him that Tommy died. Pete, sitting in a small hotel room, reacts to this awful news, telling Erica he doesn't know what to do, but that he spoke to his lawyer. Erica, fuming on the other lines, asks him what he's going to tell the court when they ask how he got the number. Pete, stammering, says he doesn't know and asks Erica what difference it makes for her - she's already in jail. He quickly apologizes, but Erica slams the phone down.

Kurt sits at his kitchen table, nervously cleaning a shotgun, belying the fearless air he put on earlier. He peers out the window, then turns back around to see Max, standing right in his kitchen. Kurt tries to reason with his Max, even admitting that they're brothers, but it's no use. When Kurt goes for his gun, Max leaps on him and kills him.

Outside, Ray is dressing down the police chief when he notices something; one of the port-a-potty doors, still on the bed of the truck, is open. Ray runs up to the truck and flings open the door to find the driver slouched inside, face bloody, dead.

Ray kicks in Kurt's front door and enters, gun raised. A couple local cops scramble to keep up with him. Ray comes around toward the kitchen and slouches at the sight of Kurt's crumpled body lying in a pool of blood.

Ray storms out of the house and calls Erica, who's still at the convenience store by the pay phone. He tells her that Max is there and Kurt is dead. She notices a cop walking by her, but there's something suspicious about him. She watches the "cop" climb into a pick-up truck, and that's when it hits her. She tells Ray that she sees Max and starts to sprint after him. Max notices, hops inside the truck and peels out. Erica runs alongside the rapidly accelerating truck and throws herself into the bed. Max swerves in an attempt to throw her out, sending the trailer fishtailing around behind them. Erica finds a tire iron in the back and smashes the cab window. She leans into the cab and grabs onto Max, forcing him off the road and into a ditch. Max staggers out and attempts to run, but the SUV screeches up behind him and Ray hops out, gun drawn.

Ray, Shea, Lloyd, and Erica walk Max into the bullpen and shove him into a chair. Julianne carries an armload of chains and cuffs to Ray and Shea, who secure Max as best they can. Erica walks up to Julianne's desk, asking for aspirin. Julianne tells her that the cops got Pete. Erica freezes, but hides her surprise as Julianne fills her in. She walks away, forgetting the aspirin. Max, cuffed and taped down to the chair, spits all over Lloyd.

Realizing that they don't have any spit masks in the office, Julianne kicks off her shoes, reaches under her skirt, peels off her tights and tosses them to Ray. Lloyd's eyes go wide. Did she really just do that?

Erica is alone in the bathroom, getting back into her prison jumper. Her face is stone, but her hands shake like the San Andreas. She braces herself against the wall and stares into the mirror.

Back in the office, the phone on Julianne's desk rings. It's Damien. She puts it on speaker and Lloyd finally decides to speak. Erica emerges from the bathroom and Ray comes out of his office. He points to Julianne's computer. She nods, already on the trace. Lloyd pulls off his coat - it's game time.

He tells Damien that he needs a challenge, a criminal who can hold his interest, and he finally found it in Max. He tries to convince Damien that he's now old news, but Damien calls his bluff. He tells Lloyd to put his coat back on and get moving because there's a new girl missing. Damien hangs up the phone and Lloyd freezes - how did Damien know Lloyd took off his coat?

Erica moves to the window and scans the skyline, realizing that he must be on the roof of the adjacent building. Ray throws Julianne a gun and tells her to keep an eye on Max as the team rushes out to the roof of the building next door, but it's too late. By the time they get there, Damien's gone.

As the team fans out, Ray spots something on the ground. He picks it up for a closer look and goes pale. Erica looks over to see Ray dialing his phone in a panic. Ray gets on the phone with his ex-wife, asking if Teresa, their daughter, is home yet. Erica runs over to Ray's side and takes the card from him. Erica shows Shea and Lloyd the card: a school ID with a photo of Teresa, Ray's baby girl.